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It was about eighteen months ago when the Mountain Goats played an epic show at Brooklyn Steel that we were fortunate to attend and capture. So the band’s return to the venue on the tour to support their excellent new album In League with Dragons, came with some real anticipation. And man, did the band deliver. John Darnielle was particularly loquacious on this evening (check out the number of “banter” tracks), but his comments were all on point. The Mountain Goats have achieved a level of stature that’s been earned in years of tours and albums, and it seems like the band has reached that point where it can enjoy and revel in its well-deserved respect. And while Dragons dominated the setlist early-on, the band did still deliver the types of old rare nuggets that still satisfy the grizzled veterans of tMG shows. Indeed rare songs like “Jaipur” (played less than 10 times in the last 10 years), “Spilling Toward Alpha” (3 times in the last decade) , and “The Coroner’s Gambit” (played two times before 2019) are the types of setlist surprises that make us keep coming year after year. But ultimately this night was about the new album, the strength of which makes us believe that the Mountain Goats will continue to be the gift that keeps giving.

I recorded this set with the Schoeps cards raised high inside the soundboard booth and mixed with a board feed mixed expertly as always by longtime tMG FOH Brandon. The result is another superb recording of this band from this venue. Enjoy!

I’ve never been to a Mountain Goats concert quite like this one. Generally speaking, the fans of the Mountain Goats are universally involved in the show. Sure, they shout out obscure requests but the people at these unique shows are there for the artist, for the music, and for the experience. There’s normally almost no chatter at a Mountain Goats show that’s unrelated to the music. Just listen to the recording we just recently posted from Brooklyn Steel, a large venue with a very large crowd and not a peep during the quiet moments. That Brooklyn crowd was at that show for all the right reasons, and the band seemed to feel it.

At White Eagle Hall in Jersey City, the front half of the crowd was the usual engaged Mountain Goats fans, but the back half of the sold out venue were almost defiantly yapping over the music. It was troubling and odd and I think it knocked the band off a kilter a couple of times. John specifically called out “hey talking guys, I’m trying to play guitar here”. I don’t have any explanation for this crowd that isn’t going to read as arrogant, so I’ll just attribute it to a Friday night, a sold out venue, and too-efficient bartenders.

Sadly, this is the reality for many events these days — the chatterers don’t really care. But this was a really solid show that I’m simply going to have to get over the crowd issues. For devotees to The Sunset Tree, however, this show is a must-listen. Along with regulars “This Year” and “Up The Wolves”, we were treated to infrequently performed versions of “You Or Your Memory” and “Broom People”. The balance of the setlist offered a slate of the new songs (from Goths) performed regularly on this tour and a couple of more surprises — “I’ve Got The Sex” and the return of “Beautiful Gas Mask” to the rotation. There are only three more dates on this tour — so get out and see the band, but please don’t talk over the music!

I recorded this set with the fortunate use of Brandon’s excellent board feed mixed with some of the room mics mounted inside the board area centered in the balcony. Other than the crowd din recognizable during quiet moments, this recording is quite good. Enjoy!

All the stars aligned for this Sunday night return to NYC for the Mountain Goats. On tour in support of their newest release, the excellent Goths (Merge Records) album, the band played their first local shows in over a year and a half. Those legendary 2015 and 2016 City Winery shows saw the Mountain Goats in an intimate setting, but at Brooklyn Steel this weekend the large room afforded the band the opportunity to stretch out. As they took the stage to the dramatic Vivaldi concerto, the Mountain Goats were greeted warmly by the packed room. This was a night when the fans played a truly complimentary role to the music — hushed during the quiet moments and raucous when required, but attentive throughout. There was no idle chatter and virtually none of the persistent shouted requests that sometimes annoy at Mountain Goats shows. Ultimately, the audience was rewarded with a lengthy show featuring stellar performances, a few rare nuggets, and two shout-outs to the crowd from John Darnielle later in the evening.

Goths is essentially a tribute to that early 80s British scene which included Siouxsie, Nick Cave, Peter Murphy/Bauhaus, and Andrew Eldritch/Sisters of Mercy. As with any subject of a Mountain Goats album, the songs are both tributes and explications of the melancholy and loneliness of the lifestyle. “Andrew Eldritch Is Moving Back to Leeds” finds the singer leaving the goth life in Germany and returning with little or no fanfare to the upper Midlands town where the band began. For this particular show “Eldritch” was preceded by the debut of a cover of the Sisters Of Mercy’s 1989 single “Lucretia My Reflection”, performed to perfection in large part because the band’s stage assistant had enough foresight to print and laminate the lyrics in advance. It was that kind of night, as seemingly everything the band did turned out right. John’s three-song solo set featured an infrequent appearance of “Autoclave”, and an exceedingly rare unreleased “Poltergeist”, before the band returned for a powerful second half of the show. The show’s finale was a return of “The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton”, a fun song that I haven’t seen in a few years and which always gets the crowd involved. Sunday night’s show at Brooklyn Steel represented all of the reasons why we keep coming back to see this band, and probably always will.

I recorded this set with the Neumann hypers mounted high inside the soundboard cage and mixed with the a feed provided by the Mountain Goats longtime FOH Brandon Eggleston. Both the room and the feed provided superbly balanced sound, so that this recording is truly a remarkable capture. Enjoy!

We saw all three of the Mountain Goats performances this week at City Winery. And while this is not the first time we’ve experienced three straight tMG shows (Bowery in 2011 was 3 in a row), this set of shows was so emotionally rewarding. As we’ve pointed out already this month, the tour that concluded in NYC was inspired by a show we recorded at this very venue one year ago. Each of the nights took on a different personality and on night two, the song choices geared in a subtle way towards the positive and inspiring — perhaps motivated by the birthday of band member Matt Douglas (check out the slowest happy birthday song ever). Monday night included the only NYC performances of “Dennis Brown” and “Never Quite Free”, and the only appearances all tour of the New York-based duo of “Going to Port Washington” and “Going to Queens”. And there was reason to be positive. This tour was entirely successful on its merits, the band is playing at its peak, and City Winery seems to be the perfect fit for the current incarnation of the Mountain Goats. Indeed, this tour also contained a stop in Chicago for two shows at that branch of the venue. The balance of the set consisted of primarily songs we’ve seen on this tour which have included inspired 2016 versions of “Woke Up New” and “Damn These Vampires”, which continued to shine on this night. We expect to post the third and final night in the next few days, so stay tuned.

I recorded this set with the Schoeps cards clamped to a pole 20 feet from the stage and mixed with a perfect soundboard feed provided by the band’s longtime FOH Brandon Eggleston. The sound quality is superb. Enjoy!

As noted in our review of the New Haven show, the concept of this Mountain Goats tour grew up around the band’s City Winery gigs of last year, of which we recorded both. That the band found inspiration in this particular room isn’t surprising; while some younger fans may not be used to seeing bands in more sedate environments, this venue must be an absolute dream for any performer who plays a wide dynamic range of music and whose fans hang on every word. The Mountain Goats took the stage at one of last year’s shows not with the type of upbeat number you’d need to launch a typical club gig, but with the gorgeous “Get Lonely,” which set the tone for an evening of wide-ranging sounds and deep catalog dives. Yes, the pro-wrestling-themed Beat the Champ made a few appearances, including a stripped-down take on “Foreign Object” and an inspired “Werewolf Gimmick,” and an encore of “Southwestern Territory,” but the deep dives were the real meat of the evening. John Darnielle reached all the way back to 1993 for “Water Song II,” followed by “Horseradish Road,” from 2000’s Coroner’s Gambit, played so rarely of late that Darnielle skipped a verse. Not that a rough spot here or there matters; only the hardest heart wouldn’t have wept at the night’s fragile, emotional peak, from “Steal Smoked Fish,” followed by “Black Pear Tree,” to “Lakeside View Apartments Suite” to “Ezekiel 7 and the Permanent Efficacy of Grace,” the night’s most musically dense number, and a note of hope.

Among many gifts, Darnielle’s ability to swing from spinning metaphors about wrestling to such deep emotional fare, and back to lighter-hearted territory like “Damn These Vampires.” Despite the seriousness of the material, Darnielle’s freewheeling, conversational style with his audience makes the show itself intimate and light; especially in this seated, dinner situation, it feels like being part of a very large living room show. And, as we’ve noted before, Jon Wurster’s drums, Peter Hughes’ bass and multi-instrumentalist Matt Douglas give Darnielle a backdrop that adds discipline and welcome twists to both new and old songs.

Darnielle closed with one of the band’s most poignant recent numbers, “Spent Gladiator 2.” As with “No Children,” the closer of the 4/12/15 City Winery show, Darnielle performed most of the song in the audience, circling through the crowd, singing the lyrics without amplification. That refrain, to stay alive, just stay alive, felt like both the universal plea that it is and a personal one to each of us. If you were lucky enough to be sitting there, having taken in this exceptional hour and a half, you knew life was worth living.

I recorded this set with a feed of engineer Brandon Eggleston’s live mix, together with Schoeps MK41V microphones mounted on a post forward of the board. The sound quality, as with all of our City Winery recordings of this band, is exceptional. Enjoy!

There are times when the people who book shows make the perfect pairing of a band and a venue and this weekend the Mountain Goats and City Winery were a marriage made in heaven. We caught both nights with two different NYCTaper contributors but we both were in complete agreement that these were outstanding shows in large part because of where they took place. City Winery prides itself on being a “listening room” — a place where people who come to see an artist perform respect the music. There is literally a pre-show message to refrain from talking during the music. For Mountain Goats fans however, the warning may not be actually necessary. They may sing along with the lyrics (all known by heart) and call out the most obscure requests in between songs, but when the band is playing, the listening is happening. And City Winery is both large enough to satisfy the two-night ticket demand for this band, and small enough to maintain a nice level of intimacy.

The Mountain Goats are currently on tour in support of Beat the Champ, which is ostensibly John Darnielle’s tribute to the early days of professional wrestling of the 1970s and early 80s. But as with the Mountain Goats music, there’s much going on beneath the surface of these songs. The basic routines that made wrestling attractive to suburban kids of the time — identifiable heroes and villains, fluid loyalties, physical comedy, and deception — are all themes that Darnielle is comfortable covering in Mountain Goats material as symbols of wider human truths. For example, the protagonist in “The Legend of Chavo Guerrero” (streaming below) becomes the “good guy” foil to Darnielle’s abusive stepfather and “Southwestern Territory” becomes a parable for the musician’s life on the road. In a lengthy show at City Winery, these and other Champ songs fit well within a career spanning setlist that offered a “gimmick” of its own. The band had played a pared-down “basement” set for the City Winery’s video series this week and enjoyed the experience so much that the actual stage plot on this night featured a small drum kit and Peter Hughes fretless bass — an “unplugged” set-up if you will. There were also some change-ups, as usual set-closer “This Year” appeared very early in the set, and “No Children” featured a complete-song vocal performance by the crowd while Darnielle led the chorus while standing on a table in the audience. Other highlights of this terrifically entertaining set included personal favorite “Up The Wolves” (also streaming below), “Foreign Object” with the outstanding horn work from new band member Matt Douglas, and a goofy acoustic cover of the Grateful Dead’s “St. Stephen” — and of course a significant amount of John’s usual humorous banter. While the Mountain Goats will not be back in NYC until next year — the current tour runs through June and then its off to Europe in the Fall — we expect that when they do the NYC shows will again be at City Winery. At least we hope they are, since this was one of my favorite tMG shows of the many I have seen.

I recorded this set with the Schoeps cards clamped to the same beam that acidjack used for the previous night’s show and mixed with a superb soundboard feed by longtime Mountain Goats FOH Brandon Eggleston. The sound quality is quite excellent. Enjoy!

John Darnielle possesses the writer’s gift of universality. From his very specific songs come truths that touch the hearts of listeners who have never lived his life. You may never have felt the humiliation of being a burned out tweaker, sweating it out in a dingy hotel room, but you understand what it means to feel you’re at rock bottom. You know what it is to be dumb and wild and free. You know what it is to desperately, desperately, survive a year that hasn’t gone the way you hoped. In John’s quirky new songs about wrestling from Beat the Champ there are classic themes about underdogs and alienation, themes that you don’t need to wear a mask to understand. The Mountain Goats built their fervent fan base not on the strength of riffs but on words. Listening to Darnielle’s stories, feeling the emotions he projects, his heart becomes your heart; his trials, yours.

The Mountain Goats played NYC shows on this tour both at Webster Hall and two nights at City Winery, in lieu of a single large show at Terminal 5 or a similar venue. For that, we can be grateful, as City Winery — where as John said, he could actually see the back of the venue from the stage — vibed perfectly with what he wanted. For this tour, the regular trio of Darnielle, Jon Wurster and Peter Hughes is joined by the NC-based journeyman and Swiss army knife of a musician Matt Douglas, who has now appeared on this site with three different bands, if you count his solo show. The addition of Douglas on sax, guitar, horns and keys adds welcome texture and complexity to the full-band numbers, and takes some pressure off of Darnielle, whose massive catalog is always a challenge on tour. The intimate room amplified the songs’ emotional heft; it was a joy to see the rather well-heeled crowd of (probably) former nerds, geeks and rejects sing along to one of Darnielle’s most approachable verses:

people were mean to youbut i always thought you were coolclicking down the concrete hallwaysin your spiked heelsback in high school

That’s Darnielle’s magic, distilled: A song about a single person that many of us could see in ourselves, even if what made us different had nothing to do with spiked heels. If proof were ever needed of the value of being yourself, Darnielle and his slow-burning but runaway success would be the best of it. That he has created an entire community of people who feel the same way is his gift to all of us. Happiness isn’t conformity, or cowing to others’ idea of who you ought to be. It’s doing every stupid thing that makes you feel alive, and the joy you feel at coming out on the other side, still breathing. Long live The Mountain Goats.

I recorded this set with Schoeps MK41 supercardiod microphones in a position forward of the board, along with a stereo feed of The Mountain Goats’ engineer Brandon Eggleston’s excellent house mix. The sound quality is outstanding. Enjoy!

Transcendental Youth is the fourteenth proper Mountain Goats album. Its another strong record that continues the themes that the Mountain Goats often explore, misfits and tragi-comedic characters. The new album also spurred a tour, and although John Darnielle played a show as part of the Ecstatic Music Fest in March, this was the band’s first proper visit to NYC in more than a year and half, and it resulted in four sold out shows. On Saturday night at Music Hall, the Mountain Goats performed eight songs from the new album within a set of both tMG standards and a few rare nuggets. John was particularly effusive and hilarious on this night with the between-song banter, and for this tour tMG were joined for part of the set with show-opener Matthew E. White’s horn section. The result was a long and thoroughly entertaining night of music, one of the best Mountain Goats shows we’ve seen.

I recorded this show from the center balcony rail with the Sennheisers mounted fairly low. The room was mixed to perfection by tMG sound engineer Brandon, and the result is one of our best recordings from the balcony spot in this venue. Enjoy!

(the Mountain Goats performance on Tuesday night at Bowery was also recorded and will be posted soon)

Stream “San Bernardino”:

This Recording is now available for Download in FLAC and MP3 and to Stream at Archive.org [HERE].

Note: All of the material on this site is offered with artist permission, free to fans, at our expense. The only thing we ask is that you download the material directly from this site, rather than re-posting the direct links or the files on other sites without our permission. Please respect our request.

If you download this recording from NYCTaper, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT the Mountain Goats, visit their website, and purchase the latest album Transcendental Youth from Merge Records [HERE].

The final night of the Mountain Goats outstanding three-show run at Bowery Ballroom was the shortest set of the week, but certainly did not lack in the intensity or good feeling of the previous two. John referenced the ease of staying several days in one town and perhaps because the band knew it would have to travel that night, the set contained significantly less “banter” than the earlier shows. However, the music was as rich as ever, and Craig Finn returned for an encore guest performance, this time singing on both “Palmcorder Yajna” (streaming below), and “This Year”, where the entire Megafaun band joined on stage for the first time. Other set highlights included rarities “Ontario”, “Love Love Love” and “Prowl Great Cain”. The Mountain Goats tour is continuing through this week, and returns to the Northeast for a Philadelphia show on April 15 — a show I’m considering attending on a lark. The NYC experience was that good.

I recorded this set in the same manner as the previous two nights, and the sound quality is again superb. Enjoy!

Stream “Palmcorder Yajna” (with Craig Finn):

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This Recording is now available to Download in FLAC and MP3 at Archive.org [HERE].

Tuesday night’s Bowery show was the second of three consecutive dates at the NYC venue, but it also happened to be the very day that the new the Mountain Goats album All Eternals Deck (Merge) was released. John Darneille spoke about his positive mental health on this particular release day — as well he should. All Eternals Deck is a superb album, and several of those songs featured at this show were already set highlights. We are streaming “Birth of Serpents” below, but we could well have featured the show opener “Liza Forever Minnelli”, “Damn These Vampires”, or a song which earned an encore slot on this night “Estate Sale Sign”. Despite the focus on the strong new material, John did not however forsake the vintage material and performed some outstanding older and more obscure songs, including “Home Again Garden Grove”, “Sinaloan Milk Snake Song”, and “Jeff Davis County Blues”, and even an unreleased song “Shower”. This night did not feature any special guests, but at nearly two hours, it was the longest show of the run.

I recorded this set in the same manner as the previous night and the sound quality is again superb. This are two bursts of static during “Seeing Daylight” that were caused when my recording machine was jostled during the cleanup of a full beer spilled on my stuff. Otherwise enjoy this excellent recording!

Stream “Birth of Serpents”:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

This Recording is now available for Download in FLAC and MP3 at Archive.org [HERE].

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